Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

youngthrasher9

youngthrasher9

New member
Lately I've been feeling like I'm out growing my Blackstar HT-20. Here's the problems I've been having with it so far: it doesn't have enough gain for me. I use a bad monkey as boost and it pushes the amp harder, but it just doesn't give me the sound I'm looking for. The ISF control is cool, but there is faults to it. When you turn to the more British sounding side, it gets a larger lower mid range response, but it loses lots of the grind. When you turn to the more American sounding side, it loses the large lower midrange response, thus making it sound thinner, but it adds grind. I've many EQ combonations and there is just no winning with this amp as far as the tone I'm trying to get. It just doesn't have the character in the higher gain territory that I want.

Here's the tones that I'm currently in love with:





The song in the first video was recorded using a Soldano SLO Kemper profile.

So basically what I'm looking for is an amp with a Soldano-y high gain sparkling crunch. It needs to be able to get somewhat tight, but not Djent tight/percussive. It needs to be something that I can play while people are at home, so if it's 100w it needs to sound decent at low volumes or have power scaling or similar to pull off bedroom playing. I'd like it to have 2 channels or more, one being a useable clean channel. I'm not super picky when comes to clean sounds. I don't need 4 channels or more. At that point I'd have 1 or 2 channels that I wouldn't use.

Here's the deal though: the amp needs to be under $1100.

What I'm considering so far: the Engl Thunder, The Engl Ironball (if I can find it used), The EVH 5150 III 50w. If you know of an amp that could fit my needs, please tell me about it. I'm not looking for something that is scooped sounding by nature. I don't want to use a pedal for the distortion.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

Sounds like you want something with lots of smooth, musical gain. If you're looking for this in a tube amp, it will cost a whole lot of cash. Sounds like something along the lines of a Matchless/SLO/VHT (now Fryette) Pitbull... But if you don't mind really, really good solid state, you've gotta check out this bad boy!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ARSENAL-300...HALL-VALVESTATE-8100-FX-MODE-4-/151059376026?

I used to have a Randall which I sold (I still have a fuzzy covered RG100 prototype) but it was my go to amp for straight up metal distortion without the need to boost or tighten or anything in fact I have a smorgasbord of great tube amps and even I want one of these ARSENAL Predators!

According to their web page Arsenal is also making tube amps and guitars, they're a very new company and have obviously put the effort in to make this head awesome.

Read the description. For under $700 US how could you go wrong?
 
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Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

Buy a Bugera 333XL Infinium...all the tone, monster gain, & rich, thick smoothness (plus more features: automatic-biasing, 3 separate channels/controls, use/combine any octal tubes you want etc ...), at a fraction of the price.


For $1100 buy 2 lol.. the 6262 is pretty sweet as well :)

Despite what you may have heard/read, build quality & reliability are both excellent.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

Phantasmagoria said:
Buy a Bugera 333XL Infinium...all the tone, monster gain, & rich, thick smoothness (plus more features: automatic-biasing, 3 separate channels/controls, use/combine any octal tubes you want etc ...), at a fraction of the price.


For $1100 buy 2 lol.. the 6262 is pretty sweet as well :)

Despite what you may have heard/read, build quality & reliability are both excellent.
Click to expand...

This very well might be my choice. The only thing that really concerns me is the volume. Can it do low volumes well?
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

Beer$ said:
Sounds like you want something with lots of smooth, musical gain. If you're looking for this in a tube amp, it will cost a whole lot of cash. Sounds like something along the lines of a Matchless/SLO/VHT (now Fryette) Pitbull... But if you don't mind really, really good solid state, you've gotta check out this bad boy!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ARSENAL-300...HALL-VALVESTATE-8100-FX-MODE-4-/151059376026?

I used to have a Randall which I sold (I still have a fuzzy covered RG100 prototype) but it was my go to amp for straight up metal distortion without the need to boost or tighten or anything in fact I have a smorgasbord of great tube amps and even I want one of these ARSENAL Predators!

According to their web page Arsenal is also making tube amps and guitars, they're a very new company and have obviously put the effort in to make this head awesome.

Read the description. For under $700 US how could you go wrong?
Click to expand...

That thing looks pretty sweet/ sounds awesome on paper...(+1 to them for mentioning 'James Murphy tones' :D) Time to check youtube for some demo's :)
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

@youngthrasher9: Very, very well! There's a demo on you tube (by that dude Dingle who does a lot of Bugera reviews) that specifically demonstrates that...look it up dude..
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

Phantasmagoria said:
Buy a Bugera 333XL Infinium...all the tone, monster gain, & rich, thick smoothness (plus more features: automatic-biasing, 3 separate channels/controls, use/combine any octal tubes you want etc ...), at a fraction of the price.


For $1100 buy 2 lol.. the 6262 is pretty sweet as well :)

Despite what you may have heard/read, build quality & reliability are both excellent.
Click to expand...

Holy shiznite, I'm convinced!

 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

lol, well there you go...


...pretty sure you won't regret it ;)

It's an awesome sounding amp. Period. A real giant killer...

..not just 'great value' ..or whatever.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

I would look at the 5150 III combo, goes from 50 watts to 1 watt at the flip of the switch and you already know you're going to like the tone....
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

I find it hard to believe there wasn't enough gain on tap. When I go back to my HT-5, I'm blown away by how much gain is available. It's the character of the gain that bugs me. I can't get a big crunch out of it, and the slight graininess that I love from recordings just isn't there. Even when I run the gain beyond 3:00, it doesn't sound right. At the end of the day, your quest is your own, but I would go around and annoy as many guitar store customers as possible testing out amps.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

It may not have enough power for you but what about a Mesa mini rectifier head? Should be in your price range, two channel head and Mesa does high gain and crunch pretty well.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

You want Soldano, get a Hot Rod 50.

Sure - it is bare bones, but it goes to eleven. It's simple and crap free, which means 1-2-3-you're dialled in and shredding like a madman. It's extremely responsive to the guitar plugged in, and the player's articulation. It gives a sense of connection between what you play and what comes out of the speaker like no other amp I've ever played. The sound is so well defined, that with gain maxed you can still hear individual notes in a 4 note chord. It won't hide sloppy playing despite the amount of gain on tap, but neither will it slow you down or give a sense of struggle with the strings. It sounds good "barely on", down to midnight-apartment levels. It will neither oscillate, nor self destruct when ran full blast, with every knob on 11.
It'll force you to use the volume knob on your guitar to clean up the sound; either that or a volume pedal. It'll change the way you play, and perceive quality.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

misterwhizzy said:
I find it hard to believe there wasn't enough gain on tap. When I go back to my HT-5, I'm blown away by how much gain is available. It's the character of the gain that bugs me. I can't get a big crunch out of it, and the slight graininess that I love from recordings just isn't there. Even when I run the gain beyond 3:00, it doesn't sound right. At the end of the day, your quest is your own, but I would go around and annoy as many guitar store customers as possible testing out amps.
Click to expand...

What you said is very accurate- after 3:00 it just adds saturation and not grain, growl, or crunch.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

hydro said:
It may not have enough power for you but what about a Mesa mini rectifier head? Should be in your price range, two channel head and Mesa does high gain and crunch pretty well.
Click to expand...

From my experience so far, I'm not a huge fan of the Mesa Rec sound, because it sounds to me like the distorted tones can be really gainy and crunchy, but a bit brittle sounding.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

vinta9e said:
You want Soldano, get a Hot Rod 50.

Sure - it is bare bones, but it goes to eleven. It's simple and crap free, which means 1-2-3-you're dialled in and shredding like a madman. It's extremely responsive to the guitar plugged in, and the player's articulation. It gives a sense of connection between what you play and what comes out of the speaker like no other amp I've ever played. The sound is so well defined, that with gain maxed you can still hear individual notes in a 4 note chord. It won't hide sloppy playing despite the amount of gain on tap, but neither will it slow you down or give a sense of struggle with the strings. It sounds good "barely on", down to midnight-apartment levels. It will neither oscillate, nor self destruct when ran full blast, with every knob on 11.
It'll force you to use the volume knob on your guitar to clean up the sound; either that or a volume pedal. It'll change the way you play, and perceive quality.
Click to expand...

I'll definitely look out for a deal on one.
 
Re: Enough pickup shenanigans for me, time to start thinking about a new amp.

It's looking like unless I get a second job I won't be able to afford a new amp. :(

The owner of the company took a hold of the scheduling and cut me back by 30 hours a paycheck. @#$#
 
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